Service Center Spot Pricing: "As Clear as Mud Right Now"

Steel service centers are struggling to peg the spot end user markets and what price levels they need to be offering to their spot flat rolled customers, based on the results obtained from last week’s flat rolled and plate steel market trends analysis performed by Steel Market Update.

Steel Market Update follows the service center spot markets as a sign of the underlying strength of the steel market. We have found over the years that when a large portion of the distributors are raising spot pricing to their end customers it portends well for steel mills to continue to collect price increases. When service centers back off from raising prices, or begin dumping steel into the market at ever lower spot numbers, steel mills are unable to collect increases.